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VOWEL 


MEASUREMENTS 


CHARLES    H.    CxRANDGENT, 

DIRKCTOR    OF    MODERN    LANGUAGES    IN    THE    HKiH  ANIJ    LATIN    SCHOOLS,    BOSTON,    MASS. 


Deprinted  from  the  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language   Association   of  Amkrica, 
Supplement  to  Vol.  V,  No.  2,  1890. 


\aKXX\.  C^-^/vv.\v3UyvNMX^  ?4^3ji^^\ii)a^^  ^ 


Vowel  Measurements, 
By  CHARLES  H.  GRANDGENT, 

DIRECTOR      OF      MODERN      LANGUAGES     IN     THE     HIGH     AND     LATIN 
SCHOOLS,    BOSTON,    MASS. 

In  a  paper  addressed  to  linguists  and  phoneticians  it  were 
superfluous  to  dwell  upon  the  importance  of  phonetics.  All 
scholars  interested  in  philolog-ical  research  or  in  modern  lan- 
guage instruction  must  be  aware  that  the  teaching  of  living 
tongues  is  greatly  improved  by  a  knowledge  of  phonetics,  and 
that  without  this  science  the  satisfactory  pursuit  of  comparative 
philology  is  impossible.  Whatever  be  the  system,  we  adopt  in 
the  French  and  German  courses  of  our  colleges  and  schools,  we 
must  admit  that  pronunciation  is  an  essential  element ;  and  the 
intelligent  teaching  of  pronunciation  demands  an  acquaintance 
with  the  physical  action  by  which  the  sounds  of  human  speech 
are  created  and  modified.  The  American  teacher,  if  he  have 
exceptional  advantages  and  an  unusually  delicate  ear,  may  per- 
haps be  able  by  mere  imitation  to  acquire  a  correct  foreign 
accent  himself,  but  neither  he  nor  the  foreigner  can  ever,  with- 
out a  knowledge  of  phonetics,  tell  his  pupils  how  to  reproduce 
it.  As  for  the  science  which  we  commonly  call  philology,  it 
consists  mainly  of  the  study  of  sound -changes ;  and  the  only 
solid  foundation  for  such  study  is,  obviously,  a  thorough  mastery 
of  the  principles  of  sound-production. 

Knowing  these  things,  we  cannot  but  regret  that  such  an  im- 
portant branch  of  learning  is,  in  spite  of  the  wonderful  achieve- 
ments of  a  few  investigators,  neither  widely  pursued  nor  firmly 
established.  In  fact,  much  remains  to  be  done  before  phonetics, 
as  a  whole,  can  be  acceptably  presented  to  the  public.  This 
being  the  case,  is  it  not  the  duty  of  everyone  concerned  with 
philology  to  do  his  share  toward  the  development  of  the  parent 
science  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is,  and  that  belief  has  impelled 
me  to  contribute  my  mite  to  the  neglected  cause. 

Before  entering  on  a  course  of  original  research,  one  natu- 
rally makes  the  practical  inquiry :  which  part  of  the  subject  is 


411286 


•  •  « •  • 


I4Q  .  .    .  ...    ,CHARZES'K  GRANDGENT. 

;«v:  :•:.••:.'   :*..?.«•.; 

in  greatest  need  of  ir.ore  light?  In  respect  to  phonetics  this 
question  is  easily  answered :  what  we  most  want  is  accurate 
information  concerning  the  pronunciation  of  vowels.  The 
acoustic  relations  of  both  vowels  and  consonants  have  been 
thoroughly  studied ;  and,  although  the  reports  of  various 
experts  disagree,  we  know  as  much  about  this  topic  as  is  ne- 
cessary for  philological  or  pedagogical  purposes.  Phoneticians 
are,  in  the  main,  agreed  as  to  the  formation  of  the  consonants ; 
some  matters,  such  as  the  tongue-positions  for  s  and  sh,  are  not 
quite  clear;  but  in  most  cases  tongue-painting  has  furnished  us 
with  conclusive  evidence.^  With  regard  to  the  vowels,  however, 
there  is,  owing  to  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  subject,  a  sad 
lack  of  harmony.  Admirable  work  has  been  done  by  several 
men ;  without  their  studies  such  further  investigation  as  I  am 
about  to  propose  would  be  inconceivable  ;  and  if  they  have  failed 
to  convince  the  learned  world,  or  even  fully  to  agree  among 
themselves,  it  is  perhaps  because  they  and  their  followers  have 
had  to  contend  with  three  drawbacks.  In  the  first  place,  being  so 
few,  instead  of  confining  themselves  to  their  own  dialects,  they 
felt  obliged  to  attempt  the  analysis  of  a  host  of  foreign  sounds, 
many  of  w^hich  must  inevitably  have  been  ill  pronounced.  Th's 
broad  method  was  doubtless  necessary  at  first ;  but,  thanks  to 
the  results  obtained  by  it,  we  can  now  demand  something  more 
precise.  Secondly,  they  adopted,  in  general,  no  system  of  real 
measurement,  but  trusted  mainly  to  sensation  and  to  ocular  ob- 
servation. Now  there  are  very  few  vowels  during  the  emission 
of  which  we  can  look  well  into  the  mouth  through  its  normal 
aperture ;  and  if  we  lower  the  jaw  more  than  usual,  we  cannot 
utter  the  sounds  in  a  natural  way.^  For  most  vowels,  then, 
mere  ocular  examination  is  an  unsafe  guide:  Still  more  uncer- 
tain is  sensation  ;  for  feeling  depends  far  less  on  the  actual 
movements  of  the  organs  than  on  the  preconceived  idea  in  the 


1  See  Techmbr,  Internationale  Zeitschr'/t,  i,  i.  Tab.  iv. 

2  See  an  article  by  Prof.  Sheldon  arxi  myself,  called  'Phonetic  Compensations,'  in  Mod. 
Lang.  Notes,  iii,6.  This  kind  of  compensation  is,  1  think,  illustrated  in  the  chart  that  ac- 
companies Dr.  Techmek's  pamphlet  '  Zur  Veranschaiilichung  der  Lautbildung'  (Barth, 
Leipzig,  1885):  if  I  remember  his  pronunciation  rightly,  the  author  forms  rt,  as  I  do,  with 
the  tongue  lying  nearly  flat  in  the  bottom  of  the  mouth  ;  but  in  the  drawing,  which  repre- 
sents a  man  uttering  a  with  his  mouth  stretched  open  to  its  widest  extent,  the  middle  of 
the  tongue  is  violently  raised,  evidently  to  compensate  for  the  enlargement  of  the  mouth- 
cavity  through  unnatural  jaw-lowering.  Similar  compensations  are  to  be  noted  in  Phonet- 
ische  Studien,  ii,  2, '  On  the  Bell  Vowel-System". 


VOWEL  MEASUREMENTS.  150 

observer's  mind.3  So  far  as  I  know,  the  only  actual  measure- 
ments of  any  importance  made  hitherto  are  those  of  Merkel^  ; 
and  even  his  are  really  systematic  and  trustworthy  only  for  the 
movements  of  the  jaw.  Thfe  third  hindrance  to  which  I  refer- 
red is  the  well-nigh  irresistible  tendency  to  construct  theories  on 
insufficient  data.  Many  investigators  have,  I  fear,  designed  their 
system  first,  and  then  pared  off  the  toes  and  heels  of  their  facts 
to  make  them  fit  the  symmetrical  slipper  into  which  they  were 
to  be  thrust.  It  should,  nevertheless,  be  said  that  the  systema- 
tizing tendency  has  brought  forth  good  as  well  as  evil ;  for 
without  it  we  should  scarcely  have  seen  that  scheme  of  vowel- 
class'fic"t'on  wh'ch  has  made  modern  phonetics  possible. 

If,  then,  we  wish  to  improve  on  the  work  done  hitherto,  we 
must  observe  these  four  rules :  begin  your  examination  with  a 
mind  free  from  all  prejudice ;  restrict  yourself,  in  your  publica- 
tion of  positive  results,  to  your  own  dialect  or  to  one  with  which 
you  are  equally  familiars;  make  no  unqualified  statement  that  is 
not  based  on  careful  measurement ;  conduct  your  investigations 
in  such  a  way  as  not  to  interfere  w!th  the  natural  utterance  of 
your  sounds. 

For  several  years  I  have  been  pursuing  a  series  of  experi- 
ments with  a  view  to  ascertaining  the  best  method  of  vowel-meas- 
urement, and  I  have  finally  hit  upon  one  that  seems  to  promise 
good  results.  I  offer  it  to  my  fellow-workers  such  as  it  is,  hop- 
ing that,  bettered  by  their  criticism,  it  may  prove  useful  to  other 
investigators. 

The  subjects  of  my  research  are  the  principal  vowels  of  my 
native  Boston  dialect,  as  I  pronounce  them  in  careless  speech. 

They  are  : — 

I.  11^:  as  in  'boot',  'suit'.  I  measure  the  second  half  of  the 
vowel,  which  is  somewhat  more  rounded  than  the  first.     The 


3.  How  far  a  really  good  observer  may  be  led  astray  by  "sensation  "  is  sadly  apparent 
in  some  parts  of  the  article  *  On  the  Bell  Vowel-System,'  by  the  late  W.  R.  Evans,  Pho- 
uetische  Studien^  ii,  i. 

4  See  '  Physiologic  der  menschlichen  Sprache,'  1866,  pp.  68,  82,  85,  86,  89,  91,  93,  98,  103. 
See  also,  however,  Vietor,  *  Phonetik,'  1887,  p.  36  ;  and  Brucke,  '  Grundzuge  der  Physio- 
pgie  und  Systematik  der  Sprachlaute,'   1876,  pp.  37,  38. 

5  In  Phonetische  Studien,  iii,  p.  114,  Sweet  says  :  "The  only  observations  that  can  be 
fully  relied  on  are  those  made  by  trained  observes  on  themselves." 

6 The  "long"  and  "short"  marks  are  used  in  this  article  merely  to  distinguish  differ- 
ent vowel-qualities:  they  have  no  reference  to  quantity.  The  correspondence  of  my 
symbols  with  those  used  by  the  American  Dialect  Society  is  as  follows :  my  il=  Am,  Dial. 
Soc,  u,  u=u,  0=6,  a=3,  0=6,  u=B,  e*=e,  Q=o,  a=a,  e=3,  i=i,  i=i,  e=e,  e=e,  a=ne. 


151  CHARLES  H.  GRANDGENT. 

latter  part  of  my  u  sounds  nearly  like  German  ti  in  gut  and 
French  on  in  doute,  but  it  has  less  energetic  lip  rounding-,  and 
seems  to  be  pronounced  a  littei^  further  forward  in  the  mouth. 

2.  u:  the  vowel  in  'bull',  '  hooT'.  It  regularly  takes  the 
place  of  n  before  any  sound  written  r  or  er,2JS,  in  'doer', 
'  endure  ,  '  insurance',  '  newer',  '  poor.'  A  variety  of  fi  regular- 
ly precedes  u  when  that  vowel  is  final  or  followed  by  a  voiced 
consonant,  as  in  '  do  ',  '  room  ',  *  rude  \  *  rule  ',  *  through '  (pro- 
nounced diiuy  rtifnn,  etc.). 

3.  o  :  as  in  '  boat ',  *  note  '.  I  measure  the  second  half,  the 
first  half  being  less  rounded. 7  The  latter  part  of  my  d  is  very 
similar  in  sound  to  German  o  in  7iot  and  French  6  in  cafe. 

4.  a :  as  in  'all,'  'bought',  'daughter',  'for',  'law';  some- 
what similar  in  sound  to  French  a  in  iort,  but  with  less  lowering 
of  the  jaw  and  no  real  rounding. 

5.  o :  the  vowel  called  (when  heard  in  such  words  as  '  boat,* 

*  road  ',  '  stone ')  "  short  New  England  o  ".  In  my  dialect,  how- 
ever, it  exists  only  in  the  following  cases :  first,  in  the  word 
'whole'  and  its  compounds;  second,  in  the  diphthong  o^  in 
'  boy ',  '  moist ',  etc.;  third,  instead  of  0  before  any  sound  written 
r  or-er  (as  in  'door',  'roaring',  'slower,'  'store.');  fourth,  in 
unaccented  syllables  of  some  words  oftener  seen  than  heard  (as 

*  phonetic' z^/on^nk,  '  November '=nov^;fide;  but  '  polite '=rr/.c/ar/) - 
A  sound  intermediate  between  3  and  o  regularly  precedes  0  when 
that  vowel  is  final  or  fallowed  by  a  voiced  consonant,  as  in 
*bowl,'  'home',  'road',  'so'  (pronounced  dod/,  hodm,  etc.). 
My  o  seems  somewhat  similar  to  French  0  in  bonne,  botte,  hom- 
ine,  poll,  but  is  apparently  pronounced  further  back  in  the 
mouth. 

6.  u:  as  in  'but',  'come',  'enough',  'squirrel'  and  some- 
times in  *  got,'  '  what.'  It  is  also  the  vowel  that  takes  the  place 
of  an  r  (except  r  between  spoken  vowels)  or  final  -^r,  after  ??,  ^, 
and  o  (as  in  '  sure  '  or  *  shoer ','  nor  '  or  '  gnawer ',  *  sore  '  or 
'  sewer ':  pronounced  shftu,  nan,  sou). 

7.  e  :  as  in  '  bird ',  '  nerve ',  '  nurse  ',  '  pearl ',  *  sir '. 

8.  6:  as  in  'hot',  'John',  'tomorrow'.  iMy  6  is  unrounded, 
and  hence  unlike  that  of  Sweet  and  of  some  Americans,  from 
which  it  seems  to  differ  also  in  other  respects.     When   pro- 

7  See  Sweet,  '  Primer  of  Phonetics',  1890,  p.  75. 


VOWEL  MEASUREMENTS.  152 

nounced  with  the  mouth  very  wide  open,  it  sounds  strikingly 
like  French  ci  in  pdte^ 

9.  a  :  as  in  *  ask ',  'far  ',  '  father  ',  '  hard ',  '  pass  ',  '  quarrel,' 
and  sometimes  in  '  got',  '  what.'  A  forward  variety  of  it  forms 
the  first  element  of  di  (as  in  '  I ',  *  die  ',  '  eye',  '  height ,'  *  light  'j; 
a  slightly  retracted  variety  forms  the  first  element  of  ati  (as  in 
'cow',  'out',  'plough'). 

10.  e  :  the  unaccented  vowel  in  '  again '  '  better ',  *  ogre  ',  'sofa'. 
It  takes  the  place  of  an  r  (except  r  between  spoken  vowels) 
or  final  -er,  after  i  and  ^  (as  in  'dear',  'payer',  'there':  pro- 
nounced die,  p^e,  etc.). 

11.  i:  as  in  'eat',  'feet',  'receipt',  'suite'.  I  measure  the 
second  half  of  the  vowel :  the  first  half  tends  slightly  towards  ?. 

12.  i:  as  in  'beard'  'Erie',  'fit',  'merely',  'near',  'steer', 
'  win  '.  An  ?  that  tends  somewhat  towards  /  regularly  precedes 
final  /  and  i  before  a  voiced  consonant,  as  in  *  fee ',  '  feed '  (pro- 
nounced fii,  fiid?)  When  i  is  unaccented,  as  in  the  last  syllable 
of  sitl  ('city')  or  niktd  ('naked'),  it  is  slightly  flattened  and 
retracted,  approaching  e  in  sound.  Compare  Sweet's  '  Primer 
of  Phonetics ',  pages  15,  74,  and  77. 

13.  ^:  as  in  'fate',  'great',  'straight'.  I  measure  the  second 
half:  the  first  half  tends  slightly  toward  t. 

14.  g:  as  in  'bet',  'fare',  'mayor',  'men',  'stair',  'tear', 
'  their  ',  '  where '.  A  variety  of  this  ^  regularly  precedes  final 
e  and  e  before  a  voiced  consonant,  as  in  'afraid',  '  bathe ',  'blaze,' 
'  name ',  '  rail ',  '  rain ',  '  say  ',  ''they  ',  '  weigh  ',  (pronounced 
efr'ied,  etc.).     Compare  Sweet's  '  Primer  of  Phonetics ',  page 

74- 

15.  a:  as  in  'cat',  'man'. 

These  fifteen  vowels,  then,  are  to  be  analyzed.  What  are  the 
organs  whose  positions  we  must  determine  ?  The  raw  material 
of  all  spoken  vowels  is,  as  every  one  knows,  the  sound  borne 
in  the  vibrating  breath  that  rises  from  the  larynx.  This  sound 
passes,  on  its  way  to  the  outer  air,  through  a  large  resonance- 
chamber  and  a  comparatively  small  orifice.  Sometimes  there 
are  two  spaces  and  two  openings.  What  we  must  ascertain  for 
every  vowel  is  the  size,  shape,  and  place  both  of  the  cavity  or 
cavities  and  of  the  narrow  passage  or  passages.  These  factors 
are  determined  by  the  form  and  position  of  the  lips,  jaw,  tongue 

8  See  Phonetische  Studien^  i,  2,  p.  171 ;  and  Sweet,  '  Primer  of  Phonetics,'  1890,  pp.  76 
and  85. 


^53 


CHARLES  H.  GRANDGENT, 


epiglottis,  and  soft  palate.  If  the  larynx  perceptibly  rises  and 
falls  as  we  go  from  one  vowel  to  another,  its  movement  must 
change  the  dimensions  of  the  pharynx,  and  should  therefore  be 
noted  also.9  In  my  case,  however,  this  motion  of  the  larynx  is 
altogether  too  slight  to  be  measured.  The  protrusion  and  re- 
traction of  the  hyoid  bone  are  connected  with  the  movements 
of  the  tongue,  and  need  not  be  separately  studied. ^°  There 
remain,  then,  the  five  organs  just  enumerated,  whose  changes 
of  shape  and  location  we  must  carefully  examine. 

The  easiest  measurements  are,  obviously,  those  of  the  lips 
and  jaw  :  with  these  we  shall  begin.  In  performing  the  follow- 
ing experiments  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  pronounce 
the  vowels  naturally.  It  is  perhaps  best  to  look  away  for  a  few 
moments  from  the  mirror  before  which  all  these  investigations 
must  be  pursued,  and  speak  over  and  over  again  a  common 
word  containing  the  desired  vowel ;  then,  by  glancing  suddenly 
back  at  the  glass,  the  real  lip-position  can  be  caught.  To  draw 
the  outlines  of  the  lips  correctly,  four  measurements,  which  can 
be  taken  with  a  slip  of  paper,  will  probably  be  found  necessary 
— those  marked  in  Figure  i"  AD,  BC,  ad,  and  be.  The  rest 
can  be  drawn  free-hand.  I  give  figures  showing  the  lip-positions 
for  all  my  vowels.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  general  outlines  are 
always  the  same :  this  is,  I  think,  a  characteristic  feature  of 
English  vowels.     My  ii,  d,  ii,  o,  and  e  are  rounded. 

The  jaw-lowering  can  be  noted  by  a  simple  device.  On  a 
strip  of  pasteboard,  an  inch  long  by  a  quarter  of  an  inch  wide, 
is  marked  a  scale  of  millimeters,  with  the  zero  at  the  bottom. 
This  scale  is  glued,  in  a  vertical  position,  to  the  most  prominent 
part  of  the  chin.  A  slender  stick,  about  a  foot  long,  is  then 
suspended  from  the  upper  part  of  the  face  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  will  hang  alongside  the  pasteboard.  The  stick  is  held 
steady  at  the  lower  end  by  the  hand  of  the  experimenter,  who 
now  fastens  a  little  pointer  to  it  at  such  a  spot  that  when  the  ja\ys 
are  firmly  closed  it  will  be  just  opposite  the  zero.  This  being 
done,  the  vowels  are  pronounced,  and  the  pointer  indicates  in 
millimeters  the  amount  of  jaw-lowering.  The  measurements  for 
my  vowels  are  given  in  the  drawings  at  the  end  of  this  article. 

9  Mbrkbl  ('Physiologic  dcr  menschlichen  Sprache ',  p.  103)  notes  a  very  decided  rise 

and  fall  of  the  larynx.  Techmbr  {Internationale  Zeitschri/t,  i,  i,  Tab.  iii)  indicates 
something  similar. 

10  See  Mod.  Lang.  Notes,  iii,  6,  p.  364. 

11  See  end  of  this  article. 


VOWEL  MEASUREMENTS.  154 

It  is  wortliy  of  note  tliat  the  difference  in  mouth-opening  between 
my  closest  and  my  widest  vowels  does  not  exceed  four  millimet- 
ers. In  French  and  German  the  difference  is,  of  course,  far 
greater.^2 

We  next  come  to  the  difiicult  subject  of  palate  and  tongue. 
Here  the  greatest  drawback  is  the  unwillingness  of  the  organs 
to  perfDrm  their  natural  functions  when  in  contact  with  any 
foreign  substance.  Only  by  long  and  patient  practice  can  the 
rebellious  tongue  and  palate  be  entirely  subjected  to  their 
owner's  will.  It  can,  however,  be  done.  In  the  course  of  varied 
experiments  I  have  gained  sufficient  mastery  over  these  sensitive 
organs  to  make,  at  will,  either  of  them  assume  the  correct  posi- 
tion for  any  vowel  in  my  dialect,  and  retain  that  position  in  spite 
of  the  presence  of  a  finger  or  an  instrument.  Before  beginning 
any  systematic  measurements  it  is  well  thoroughly  to  explore 
with  the  finger  all  parts  of  the  mouth  and  as  much  as  possible 
of  the  pharynx,  with  a  view  both  to  training  and  hardening  the 
organs,  and  to  gaining  a  general  knowledge  of  the  movements 
of  tongue  and  palate.  Much  can  be  learned  in  this  way  ;  in  fact, 
for  some  measurements  I  have  discovered  no  better  method.'^ 
Before  long  it  will  be  found  expedient  to  pronounce  the  sounds 
mentally  rather  than  aloud  ;  for  when  the  organs  are  in  the 
proper  position  for  a  vo\tel,  the  presence  of  a  finger  in  the 
mouth  of  course  diminishes  the  size  of  the  resonance-chamber 
and  so  alters  the  sound ;  and  the  observer,  catching  this  false 
note,  involuntarily  shifts  his  tongue.  A  helpful  instrument  in  all 
these  researches  is  a  tiny  electric  light  that  can  be  held  in  the 
mouth. ^4  With  the  aid  of  this  burner  the  outline  of  the  tongue 
from  side  to  side  can  be  observed  from  the  mouth-aperture,  and 
can  be  drawn  with  sufficient  accuracy  free-hand.  Drawings  of 
these  outlines  for  my  vowels  accompany  the  representations  of 
lip  positions  and  longitudinal  tongue-profiles  at  the  end  of  this 
paper.    Those  for  i,  ?,  /,  e,  and  a  were  made  with  the  head  thrown 

12  Merkel  ('Physiologic  der  menschlichen  Sprache',  p.  103)  makes  the  difference 
between  z'and  a.  Passy  {Phonetische  Stud^en,  i,  i,  p.  24)  gives  diagrams  which  seem  to 
indicate  a  little  more  jaw -lowering.  Western  ('  Eiiglische  Lautlehre  ',  1885,  pp.  5  and  83) 
implies  that  the  distinction  between  i  and  a  is  almost  entirely  a  matter  of  jaw -position. 

13  In  his  introduction  to  the  Revue  des  patois  gallo-rovians,  i,  i,  the  Abbe  Rousselot 
says,  in  the  course  of  an  'Analyse  des  sons ',  in  speaking  of  the  vowels  (p.  13) :  "Je  ne 
tiendrai  compte  ici  que  des  mouvements  de  la  langue  et  de  ceux  des  levres,  L'explorateur 
que  j'emploie  est  tout  simplement  le  doigt." 

14  I  have  made  use  of  a  small  glass  bulb  enclosing  a  one-candle-power  incandescent 
burner  connected  by  two  thin  wires  with  a  three-cell  battery. 


155  CHARLES  H.  GRAND  GENT. 

back,  and  represent  the  passage  betv/een  the  front  part  of  the 
tongue  and  the  roots  of  the  teeth  ;  the  others  represent  the 
highest  part  of  the  tongue  that  can  be  seen,  and  the  section  of 
the  palate  that  is  over  it. 

For  our  main  investigations  the  starting  point  must  be  the 
upper  teeth  and  the  hard  palate.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  is 
to  make  an  outline  drawing  of  the  whole  palate  from  front  to 
back.  A  cast  of  the  immovable  hard  palate  can  be  obtained 
from  a  dentist,  or  constructed  by  the  observer  himself  from  a 
pulp  made  of  tissue  paper.  After  having  carefully  measured  in 
the  mouth  the  distance  (Figure  2,  be)  from  the  lower  edge  of 
the  upper  front  teeth  to  the  middle  of  the  arch  that  forms  the 
inner  limit  of  the  hard  palate,  we  can  take  the  front  part  of  our 
outline  from  the  cast..  The  drawing  should  include  a  cross  sec- 
tion of  one  of  the  upper  front  teeth.  The  back  portion  of  our 
4ine,  cons".sting  of  the  profile  of  the  soft  palate,  will  vary  with  the 
different  vowels.  For  every  vowel  it  is  best  to  make  several 
measurements.  If  we  look  into  the  widely-opened  mouth,  we 
see  that  the  way  into  the  pharynx  leads  through  a  double  arch, 
broken  at  the  top ;  from  the  centre  of  thii?  arch  hangs  the  uvula. 
After  setting  the  soft  palate  in  the  correct  position  for  the 
vowel, '5  we  take  a  long,  narrow  strip  of  wood,  and  measure  the 
distance  from  the  edge  of  the  uppeu  front  teeth,  first  to  the 
inner  (^),  next  to  the  outer  (be)  pharyngal  arch,  and  then  to  a 
point  half-way  between  the  outer  pharyngal  and  the  palatal 
arches  (bd,  Figure  2).'^  These  points  being  fixed,  we  can  draw 
the  outline  of  the  soft  palate.  To  complete  the  drawing  (cf. 
Figure  2),  a  section  of  the  lower  front  teeth  should  be  added 
in  the  proper  position.  The  lips  may,  if  desired,  be  outlined 
also. 

Such  a  drawln;]^  as  this  having  been  prepared  for  every  one 
of  the  fifteen  vowels,  we  can  now  proceed  to  the  tongue-meas- 
urements. For  these  I  have  constructed  a  set  of  instruments 
consisting  of  card -board  ovals  varying  in  length  from  five  to 

15  The  soft  palate  can  readily  be  trained  to  take  the  proper  positions.  It  is  well  to  begin 
by  watching  its  movements  in  natural  speech,  and  then  to  try  holding  the  tongue  down 
with  the  finger  and  uttering  the  vowels  mentally.  Before  long  the  tongue  will  stay  down 
of  its  own  accord,  and  the  soft  palate  will  move  independently  of  it. 

16  For  the  sake  of  greater  accuracy  (as  these  data  are  of  the  highest  importance),  we 
may  make  some  supplementary  measurements.  Open  the  mouth  wide ;  determine  the 
exact  position  of  «  (Figure  2)  with  reference  to  d;  then  measure  a/".  The. positions  of  a 
and  b,  and  the  distances  ab,  a/,  and  V^  being  known,  we  can  find  the  exact  location  of/l 
Similarly  we  can,  if  necessary,  calculate  the  positions  of  e  and  d. 


VOWEL  MEASUREMENTS,  156 

twenty-five  millimeters,  each  of  which  is  firmly  fastened  to  a 
piece  of  pliable  silver  wire  about  six  inches  long,  which  projects 
at  right  ang^  from  the  centre  of  the  ellipse.  The  observer  sits 
at  his  desk  with  the  proper  drawing  before  him,  and  with  pencil, 
mirror,  and  instruments  at  hand.  He  selects  the  largest  instru- 
ment that  can,  so  far  as  he  is  able  to  judge,  be  used  for  the 
vowel  in  question  ;  bends  the  w"re  so  that  it  wJi  hold  the  upright 
oval  as  nearly  as  possible  at  right  angles  to  the  tongue ;  places 
the  card-board  at  the  very  back  of  the  wide-open  mouth  ;  then 
rases  the  jaw,  and,  Vv^hile  pronouncing  the  vowel  naturally,  pulls 
the  oval  forward  until  it  touches  simultaneously  .the  palate  and 
the  tongue. '7  Thereupon  he  stops,  marks  with  his  thumb-nail 
the  point  of  the  wire  that  is  in  contact  with  the  "lower  edge  of 
the  upper  front  teeth,  and  then  takes  the  instrument  from  his 
mouth  and  applies  it  immediately  to  his  drawing,  being  very 
careful  not  to  bend  the  wire.  When  the  instrument  occupies  on 
the  drawing  a  place  exactly  similar  to  that  which  it  held  hi  the 
mouth,  the  top  of  the  ellipse  being  opposite  the  palate  line,  he 
marks  with  a  dot  on  the  paper  the  position  of  the  lower  end  of 
the  oval,  thus  indicating  the  point  where  it  rested  on  the  tongue. 
After  that,  he  takes  the  next  smaller  instrument,  performs  the 
same  experiment,  and  makes  another  dot ;  and  so  on,  until  all 
the  available  instruments  have  been  used.  Then  he  changes  the 
process,  beginning  at  the  big  cavity  just  behind  the  roots  of  the 
teeth,  and  moving  the  instruments  both  backward  and  forward. 
For  some  vowels,  of  course,  he  will  find  that  only  one  of  these 
two  sets  of  measurements  will  be  possible.  Finally,  by  connect- 
ing all  the  dots  he  has  made  on  the  paper,  he  obtains  the  longi- 
tud^  profile  of  the  tongue  for  the  desired  vowel.  The  shape 
of  the  root  of  the  tongue;  the  size  of  the  pocket  between  it  and 
the  epiglottis,  and  also  the  distances  between  the  raised  edge  of 
the  epiglott's  and  the  back  of.  the  tongue  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  inner  wall  of  the  pharynx  on  the  other,  can  best  be 
ascertained  with  the  finger.^^  When  these  distances  are  consid- 
erable, I  have  found  it  a  good  plan  to  swing  the  end  of  the 


17  Great  care  should  be  taken,  especially  in  measuring  /,  5,  e,  and  e,  lest  the  card-beard 
sink  into  the  back  of  the  tongue  and  thus  indicate  a  false  position.  If  this  digging  into  the 
tongue  cannot  be  avoided,  some  allowance  must  be  made  for  it.  Much  care  is  required, 
also,  to  keep  the  oval  perpendicular  to  the  tongue. 

18  To  admit  the  finger  the  mouth  must,  of  course,  be  opened  wider  than  usual;  but  this 
jaw-lowering,  which  amounts  to  three-quarters  of  an  inch  at  the  teeth,  is  far  less  percepti- 
ble at  the  back  of  the  mouth. 


157  CHARLES  H.  GRANDGENT. 

finger  gently  from  one  object  to  the  other,  to  continue  this 
movement  until  it  becomes,  so  to  speak,  habitual,  and  then,  on 
taking  the  finger  out,  to  reproduce  the  swing  before  a  ruler  or 
on  the  drawing.  In  this  way  a  tolerably  reliable  measurement 
can  be  made. 

The  drawings  obtained  by  these  methods  form  the  last  and 
the  most  important  portion  of  this  contribution.  I  would  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  large  figures  represent  a  section  of 
the  middle  of  the  mouth :  that  is,  the  highest  part  of  the  palate, 
the  lowest  part  of  the  central  groove  in  the  tongue,  the  greatest 
approximation  of  the  front  teeth,  and  the  widest  lip-opening. 
The  uvula  has  been  omitted.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that 
if  the  jaw  be  abnormally  lowered,  the  tongue  will  be  correspond- 
ingly raised :  hence  observers  looking  into  their  mouths  will  not 
be  able  to  see  all  the  tongue-positions  as  they  are  depicted  here. 
Students  of  Phonetics  will  observe  that  in  my  dialect  there  is 
nothing  corresponding  to  Sweet's  definitions  of  "  narrow " 
and  "wide  ".'9  I  have  no  doubt  that  such  a  distinction  exists 
in  the  speech  of  some  persons ;  I  can,  if  I  try,  make  something 
like  it  myself  for  /  and  ?,  t  and  ^  ;2°  but  it  does  not  seem  to  be 
my  natural  way  of  creating  a  difference  between  "  close  "  and 
**  open  "  sounds. 

My  a,  d,  and  e  are  also  widely  different  from  Sweet's  de- 
scriptions j^^'  my  u  is  probably^^  pronounced  further  forward ; 
I  have  not,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  his  "  narrow  "  a;  (a 
vowel  between  ^  and  «),  although  I  often  hear  it  from  Ameri- 
cans. My  drawings  show,  further,  that  most  pictures  of  the 
tongue-positions  for  i,  ?,  ^,  ^,  and  ^  represent  the  tongue  as  ex- 
tending too  far  back  :  it  really  descends  sharply  just  behind  the 
highest  point,  leaving  in  the  back  of  the  mouth  a  very  big 
chamber,  which  seems  to  be  the  distinguishing  feature  of  "front" 
vowels.^^  This  chamber  is,  in  the  case  of  i,  ?,  and  ^,  connected 
with  the  outer  air  by  a  long,  narrow  passage ;  but  for  ^  and  ^ 
the  space  before  the  tongue  is  so  widened  as  to  lose  its  tunnel- 

19  My  drawings  appear  to  show  a  regular  gradation  from  d  to  t  and  from  d  toU:  nearly 
all  German  phoneticians  have  maintained  that  this  was  the  case  with  their  vowels. 

20  See  Jespkrsen,  'Articulations  of  Speech  Sounds  ',  1889,  p.  17.  Sweet  himself  says, 
*  Primer  of  Phonetics',  1890,  p.  18  :  "The  distinction  between  narrow  and  wide  is  not  so 
clear  in  the  back  vowels." 

21  Sweet  :  '  Handbook  of  Phonetics  ',  1877,  p.  16;  '  History  of  English  Sounds  ',  1888, 
p.  3;  ♦  Primer  of  Phonetics  ',  1890,  pp.  ai,  72,  73.  In  the  last  work,  p.  72,  Svvebt  says  of 
his  "  mid-back-narrow  "  u  :  "This  vowel  is  slightly  advanced." 

22  See  ProceecUngi  0/  the  American  Philological  Society  for  1884,  pp.  xxxviii-xl. 


VOWEL  MEASUREMENTS.  158 

like  character.  U,  u,  0,  and  d  have  their  principal  mouth-cavity 
in  front  of  the  highest  part  of  the  tongue :  we  may,  then,  aptly 
call  them  "back"  vowels.  My  "front"  and  "back"  vowels 
form  two  nearly  parallel  and  vertical  series.  In  the  case  of  d,  a, 
e,  o,  u,  and  e  the  mouth-chamber  is  above  the  whole  tongue ; 
but  while  ^,  a,  and  e  leave  the  tongue  almost  perfectly  flat,  o,  u, 
and  e  require  a  hump  in  some  part  of  it.  The  elevation  for  e 
seems  to  the  thinner  from  front  to  back,  and  the  tongue  less 
retracted,  than  for  ti  and  for  0,  which  latter  vowel  is  distinguished 
from  u  only  by  its  rounding  and  by  a  slightly  higher  jaw-posi- 
tion. 0  has  a  bigger  cavity  than  a ;  a  differs  from  e  in  the  slope 
of  the  epiglottis  and  back  of  the  tongue,  and  has  also  a  larger 
chamber.  The  biggest  mouth -cavities  are  apparently  those  of 
d"^^  and  /.  I  have  already  stated  that  my  b  is  unrounded:  I 
think  I  may  safely  say  the  same  of  my  d.  My  u  and  d  have, 
on  the  other  hand,  very  marked  rounding ;  U,  o,  and  e  are  less 
rounded. 

Before  concluding,  I  wish  to  express  the  hope  that  other 
and  more  competent  observers,  and  especially  scholars  of  differ- 
ent nationalities,  may  find  time  to  m.ake,  by  these  or  other 
methods,  accurate  studies  of  their  own  vowels.  There  are  many 
difficulties  to  be  overcome^-* — some  of  them  I  have  pointed  out 
— but  the  work  is  intensely  interesting,  and,  on  the  whole,  easier 
perhaps  than  this  scanty  account  makes  it  appear.  It  is,  in  my 
opinion,  only  through  comparing  the  results  of  many  experi- 
ments by  many  men  that  we  can  construct  a  complete  and 
reliable  vowel-system. 

23  With  persons  who  round  the  a,  the  mouth-cavity  for  that  vowel  is  probably  somewhat 
smaller  than  with  me.     Bell,  however,  says  ('Speech  Reading  and  Articulation  Teaching', 

1890,  p.  13):  "  Enlarge  the  cavity  of  the  mouth  to  the  utmost Emitted  .  .   .  voice 

will  then  have  the  quality  of  what  is  called  the  *  Low  Back'  vowel  ".  I  do  not  see  how 
ViETOR  can  say  ('  Phonetik  ',  1887,  p.  15) :  "  Bei  u  ist  der  Resonanzraum  im  Munde  am 
grossten."  It  seems  to  me  that  no  back  vowel  can  have  a  smaller  cavity  than  u.  The  low 
pitch  of  this  vowel  is  evidently  caused  by  rounding.  Cf.  Sweet,  *  Primer  of  Phonetics  ', 
1890,  p.  26. 

24  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  say  that  I  made  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  preparatory  measure- 
ments before  I  thought  myself  sufficiently  skilled  to  begin  on  the  final  experiments,  the 
results  of  which  are  set  forth  in  this  article.  The  ticklishness  of  the  soft  palate,  which,  at 
first,  is  apt  to  produce  choking  and  retching,  can  easily  be  overcome  by  a  little  practice; 
but  the  sensitiveness  of  the  pharynx,  which,  if  exploration  in  that  region  be  long  continued, 
is  liable  to  develop  into  sore  throat  and  coughing,  I  have  never  been  able  to  cure.  The 
difference  in  the  effect  of  contact  on  the  parts  touched  sometimes  affords  a  clue  to  the 
whereabouts  of  the  end  of  the  exploring  finger,  when  that  member  is  not  sensitive  enough 
to  distinguish,  by  its  own  sensation,  the  soft  palate  from  the  inner  wall  of  the  pharynx. 


159 


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